SSTI Digest

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed sweeping revisions to the rules for procurement and grant making (2 CFR Part 200) in the Federal Register. These changes would solidify an August 2025 executive order that gives political appointees final authority over awarding federal grants.

A new working paper from researchers affiliated with the U.S. Census Bureau and several universities revisits one of the biggest questions in innovation policy: why has productivity growth slowed even as research and development spending continues to rise? For the technology-based economic development (TBED) community, the answer matters because it shapes how states, regions, and federal agencies think about innovation investments.

The U.S. National Science Foundation announced the launch of the NSF Tech Accelerators initiative. As proposed, the accelerators will align to four topics—agricultural technology (AgTech), materials technology (MaterialsTech), ocean technology (OceanTech), and scientific instrumentation (SciTech).

The venture capital market is undergoing significant structural changes, and TBED organizations are under increasing pressure to adjust existing and develop new strategies to meet evolving market conditions and address emerging gaps. For TBED investors, modeling how long investments must be held and what the exit paths are is critical for setting expectations with stakeholders, projecting fund utilization, and anticipating returns that can be reinvested. To that end, SSTI examined over 6,000 exits from VC-backed companies listed in PitchBook with identified nonprofit or government investments to characterize what TBED investors can expect. Our analysis found that it is taking more time and more rounds for companies to find successful exits, putting additional pressure on venture development organization (VDO) and other TBED portfolios by consuming scarce resources and limiting opportunities to reinvest proceeds.  

To support data-driven economic and workforce development, the Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD), in partnership with the EDA, has released a new Regional Clusters website with compiled data presented across interactive dashboards with maps, tables, and other tools and resources. The dashboards cover industry-based, skills, and knowledge clusters. PCRD’s definitions of each cluster type can be found here or within their respective dashboard. 

There are 21 industry clusters (comprised of 68 industry subclusters), 38 skills-based occupation clusters, and 21 knowledge-based occupation clusters across the three dashboards. Employment, weighted average hourly earnings, other economic characteristics, and more are provided for each.  

Tuition-free community college programs have expanded steadily across the country over the past decade. A recent NBER working paper examines one of the earliest examples of a statewide program, asking not just whether free tuition increases enrollment, but also whether it helps more students complete their degrees.  

The CEOs of Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP) is leading IN AI, an effort to help employers find practical ways to incorporate artificial intelligence to boost productivity and job growth. In cooperation with Gov. Mike Braun’s administration, they are connecting small businesses and large corporations with practical AI applications and technical advice. 

Illinois lawmakers passed landmark legislation  to regulate America’s leading AI companies. While the recently passed Senate Bill (SB) 315, the Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act, mirrors existing provisions in enacted legislation in California and New York, which require frontier AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic to create, publish and annually update plans to address severe or catastrophic risks from their AI models; the new measure would also mandate annual independent third-party audits of such AI companies on safety issues, which would be a first for any AI legislation in the U.S. Gov. JB Pritzker has indicated he intends to sign it.  

The bipartisan Build to Scale Reauthorization Act of 2026 was introduced on May 15 by Congresswoman Haley Stevens (MI-11) and Rep. Jim Baird (R-IN), along with several co-sponsors. Additionally, more than sixty organizations and associations in 25 states endorsed the bill, which is designed to help Americans move new products, technologies, and medical inventions to market faster.

Over the past 25 years, SSTI has seen a successful model emerge for supporting regional innovation-driven economies that deserves more attention from the TBED community. Successful Venture Development Organizations (VDOs) bring the entrepreneurial mindset of an innovation startup to regional economic growth strategies. VDOs simultaneously deliver multiple value propositions to their target service areas.

After several years of not keeping pace with inflation, recently released figures for U.S. federal investment in research and experimental development (R&D) in FY 2025 suggest a potential downturn in both current and constant dollars is looming. The news from the latest Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development comes on the heels of international coverage of China finally surpassed the US for global leadership in overall R&D investment. 

The Tennessee Innovation Exchange (TNIX) is a statewide initiative designed to make it easier for companies, entrepreneurs, and investors to connect with university research expertise across Tennessee. In this recent TBED Community of Practice webinar, speakers Chuck Layne of LaunchTN and Tom Kissane of Halo Sciences explained how they partnered with six research universities to build a shared digital platform that supports university-industry collaboration and commercialization.